[ecr]

This meeting is part of partnerships between the African Union (AU) and other international players, like the partnerships between the AU and the Arab League, the European Union (EU) and other region countries and regional groupings.

In recent years, and even more recently, Morocco has attempted to rally the AU to its thesis and to push through decisions reducing the number of African countries attending partnership meetings to exclude the Sahrawi Republic.   

Morocco's overzealousness and inordinate ambition pushed it to promote outright lies, presenting them as diplomatic victories.

This was the case at the meeting of the AU Executive Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held last July, which the Moroccan media, both official and unofficial, used as a platform to publicize fictitious decisions that the AU had supposedly adopted concerning the exclusion of the Sahrawi Republic from partnership meetings. But the truth eventually came out, exposing the Makhzen's lies.

Throughout the run-up to the Tokyo meeting, Morocco tried in vain to convince its African allies and the host country of its theses aimed at excluding the Sahrawi Republic, but all its attempts failed miserably, and Morocco's defeat can be described as humiliating when we see the Sahrawi Minister of Foreign Affairs taking part, with full prerogatives, alongside his African counterparts in this meeting, and even benefiting from personal protection provided by the host country, fed up with the rogue diplomacy engaged in by the Moroccan occupation.

This is a double setback for Morocco: not only did the Sahrawi minister attend the Tokyo meeting, but he also benefited from personal protection from the host country.[/ecr]